Best Modern Horror MoviesOur list of the best modern horror movies of the 21st century is downright terrifying. These are the scariest films around.Best Recent Horror MoviesFeature Don KayeOct 21, 2018

Every once in a while, someone likes to declare that the horror genre is dead, and so far, every one of those predictions has been wrong.

Horror movies have been around almost as long as filmmaking itself, and while the genre has always been cyclical in nature --dipping, sometimes drastically, in both quality and quantity from time to time -- all it usually takes is a well-timed box office hit, a fresh new angle or a hot young filmmaker to reanimate it again.

The 21st century has been, overall, an extremely healthy one for horror. There’s been the usual amount of dross, of course, but the genre has branched out in a number of interesting new directions as well. We had absolutely no problem tallying the initial batch of movies for this article, and have just updated it again since last year, starting with the newest and going back in time from there.

So here are almost 50 terrifying favorites that you can use for your own personal Halloween film festival -- and we promise that this lineup delivers. Brace yourselves for a look at the best horror movies of the 21st century.

These are the very best modern horror movies...Best Recent Horror Movies - Halloween (2018)Halloween (2018)

After years of mostly lackluster sequels and reboots, director David Gordon Green (and his co-writer Danny McBride) take this horror icon both back to the roots and into the future. The result is a direct sequel to the original that ignores all the other films and concentrates, with stark precision, on two ideas: the concept of Michael Myers as a primal force of evil and the theme of PTSD as exemplified by Jamie Lee Curtis’ powerful performance as a permanently damaged Laurie Strode.

Both a thrilling rollercoaster ride and a chilling exploration of an unknowable psyche, the new Halloween is also relevant to what’s happening in 2018 -- making The Shape a valid and still scary vessel for whatever metaphor you want him to represent.Best Recent Horror Movies - Mandy (2018)Mandy (2018)

Dream-like, surreal and hypnotic -- when it’s not screaming with rage -- Mandy may be more interested in atmosphere and imagery than story (the plot is admittedly far too simple for the movie’s two-hour length) but is an unnerving experience nonetheless.

Related article: Mandy review

At the center of this boldly experimental assault from director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) is a primal performance from Nicolas Cage, whose reputation for gonzo performances does a disservice to the raw emotion he can still deliver as a lumberjack out for vengeance against a frightening cult. Mandy might try your patience, but its visual poetry and uncaged (ha ha) star are never dull.

Months and several viewings later, it’s still hard to believe that this is the first feature ever from writer/director Ari Aster, who brings a literal parade of horrors to his terrifying exploration of a family’s complete breakdown from forces within and without.

Related article: Hereditary review

Toni Collette is off-the-charts stunning as the mother who tries to hold her clan together even in the face of unspeakable tragedy and the knowledge that her own family history is working against them. Harrowing and thoroughly unsettling, Hereditary is perhaps the best example yet of a new wave of genre films that are about something while still scaring the living **** out of you.

Two brothers (played by Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead, who also directed, produced, edited and wrote the film) return to the cult they once belonged to as youths, each carrying different memories of their time there and different expectations of what they’ll find in the present. But neither sibling is prepared for the inexplicable events that occur once they arrive.

Related article: The Endless review

Following their features Resolution and Spring, the Benson/Morehead team once again prove themselves adept at creating believable, atmospheric, dread-infused horror with limited resources. These guys clearly know what they’re doing, and the eerie The Endless is a strong next step for them.

Watch The Endless on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - A Quiet Place (2018)A Quiet Place (2018)

Who knew that mild Jim Halpert from The Office would end up directing one of the most acclaimed and outright scary movies of the past few years? In his third outing behind the camera (which he also co-wrote and stars in), John Krasinski uses silence -- which can be deployed to great effect in horror movies -- in the most ingenious manner possible. He, Emily Blunt and their three children live in a near-future world overrun by hideous, blind creatures that use their superior hearing to track prey by sound, thus necessitating that the human survivors remain as quiet as possible.

The result is a thriller in which literally every footstep is suffused with dread and a rusty nail becomes an object of extreme terror. While the script creaks a bit and could have used some better development, there's no doubt that Krasinski directs this for maximum tension while getting terrific work out of himself, his wife and the kids. A Quiet Place is not just compelling horror, but a loud announcement of an outstanding new directorial talent.

Watch A Quiet Place on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - It (2017)It (2017)

It’s been a long time since a Stephen King screen adaptation really got the author’s work and intent right, but It does so and then some. Full of heart and warmth for its seven young main characters -- all of whom are perfectly cast -- It sets them against an insidious evil in the shape of Bill Skarsgard’s unforgettable Pennywise the Clown.

Director Andy Muschietti’s take on King’s masterpiece is humane, moving and even funny -- a coming-of-age story that also happens to be an engrossing and unsettling monster tale. It’s very rare that a truly “epic” horror movie is released, but It can stand proudly in that rarefied category. We can’t wait for It: Chapter 2.

Was this movie mismarketed? Or did audiences just reject its overwhelming, unrelenting bleakness? Either way it’s one of the overlooked horror gems of the past few years. Writer/director Trey Edward Shults is not interested in the whys or hows of his post-apocalyptic setting -- he just puts regular, fearful human beings into the aftermath and lets us watch them as any chance for survival slowly unravels.

further reading: The Best Horror Movies on Netflix

Understated, incredibly claustrophobic (the house is a character itself) and stocked with great performances from Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, and the rest of the cast, It Comes at Night is as naturalistic as a horror movie gets -- and is all the more terrifying for it.

(Spoilers ahead if you have not seen Split) This was the film we had the toughest time deciding whether or not to include on this list. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan gives it the structure, atmosphere and tone of a horror movie, yet it’s clear now that it’s also an origin story for a comic book-style supervillain and a de facto sequel to his Unbreakable.

But for most of its running time, Split is a harrowing, darkly humorous psychological thriller anchored by an incredible performance from James McAvoy as a man with 24 different personalities in his brain -- as well as a monstrous 25th that is about to emerge.

Watch Split on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - The Girl with All the Gifts (2017)The Girl with All the Gifts (2017)

Not just one of the best horror movies of 2017, The Girl with All the Gifts was one of the best movies of that year. Moving and compassionate while at the same time frightening and dread-inducing, the movie puts a fresh spin on the zombie genre and creates memorable, empathetic characters who grapple with questions of not just what it means to be human, but what it means to be alive.

further reading: The Best Horror Movies on HBO Go

Stars Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close give top-shelf performances, but the movie belongs to young Sennia Nanua as the flesh-eating yet fully sentient Melanie, who may be a forerunner of a new, unexpected step in the evolution of whatever the human race ends up becoming. Gripping from start to finish.

Watch The Girl with All the Gifts on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - Raw (2017)Raw (2017)

Deeply graphic and disturbing, yet also rich with symbolism and subtext, Raw is both as grisly and sophisticated as horror movies come. The movie also touches on gender politics and family dynamics in its tale of two sisters at a French veterinary school who awaken to the power of their own bodies as well as primal, vicious hungers neither one of them thought possible. Director/writer Julia Ducournau stages the film in gritty, intimate style, making the gnawing on human flesh all the more horrific to watch. Raw is a movie that lives up to its name.

Watch Raw on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - Get Out (2017)Get Out (2017)

The directorial debut of comedy writer/actor Jordan Peele is a sharp, funny and creepy horror satire on race relations, white liberal hubris and socal justice. It’s also a genuinely suspenseful thriller, albeit with nods to earlier movies like The Stepford Wives, and proves that horror continues to be an effective genre through which to tell culturally and socially relevant stories.

further reading: The Best Horror Movies on Hulu

Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young African-American photographer who heads to the country with his white girlfriend (Alison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time. The meeting does not go well as Chris realizes that the seemingly nice yet awkward Armitages (led by an excellent Catherine Keener) are not what they appear to be at all. Get Out is thrilling, refreshing and a nice change of pace for the genre.

Watch Get Out on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - Under the Shadow (2016)Under the Shadow (2016)

International cinema has been exploring genre with great success in recent years, and this intimate yet mournful thriller, set in 1980s Tehran during the ongoing and brutal war between Iran and Iraq, is one of the more thoughtful and unique horror movies to emerge from that creative wellspring.

Related article: 31 Best Streaming Horror Movies

Iranian politics and social mores are woven carefully into the plot, which follows a woman and her daughter who are haunted by a djinn (an evil spirit) that may have been unleashed when their apartment building is shelled. The metaphor of the evil set free by war is fairly on the nose, but director Babak Anvari still constructs an atmosphere of slowly ascending terror and macabre imagery.

Just when you thought the zombie genre had been utterly exhausted, someone comes along and reinvigorates it. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s South Korean production brought something back to the genre that had been gradually draining out of it: humanity.

further reading: The Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime

Sure there’s a bit of sentimentality too in this story of a father trying desperately to get his daughter to her mom by train as a zombie plague breaks out, but the movie’s well-drawn characters, subtle social commentary (some on the train feel they are more worthy of survival than others) and frightening action sequences add up to a thrilling and emotionally powerful ride.

Watch Train to Busan on Amazon

Best Recent Horror Movies - The Wailing (2016)

The Wailing (2016)

South Korea struck again with this epic-length (156 minutes!) story of possession and exorcism in a small village from director Na Hong-jin. Once again a father must fight to save his daughter’s life: in this case he is a cop (Kwak Dowon) investigating a series of mysterious and violent deaths, only to discover that they have a supernatural cause that soon infects his family.

Related article: The Wailing is the Craziest Horror Flick You'll See This Year

Despite odd moments of humor here and there, The Wailing is almost unremittingly bleak and its imagery is thoroughly unsettling. Deliberately paced and building an atmosphere of unspeakable dread, The Wailing is a standout of Asian horror.

This intense little psychological thriller from director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) starts off as a weirdly off-kilter domestic melodrama and shifts disquietingly into outright paranoia as it explores the dynamics of grief, modern relationships and how well we really know our friends and neighbors.

Related article: The Invitation review

Kusama’s deft handling of the material and setting (an angular and eventually sinister L.A. house), as well as a superb cast (led by Logan Marshall-Green and Tammy Blanchard, with support from the always creepy John Carroll Lynch) elevate the standard dinner party thriller into something a bit more special. And the final scene is a knockout.

The Conjuring 2 is a rare example of a horror sequel equaling or even surpassing the original. This time the focus is more directly on paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as their skills, courage and faith are tested by England’s famous Enfield Poltergeist.

Director James Wan once again proves himself a master at using negative space, sound (or lack thereof) and period detail to wring goosebumps out of even the most jaded viewer, and the deeper characterizations make the stakes that much higher as well. There are few horror “epics,” but The Conjuring 2 comes close to being one.

A stunning feature film debut from director Robert Eggers, The Witch tells the story of a 17th century Puritan family who are excommunicated from their village and build their own farm on the edge of a vast forest -- only to be preyed upon by an ancient, malevolent witch who lives deep in the woods. Touching on themes of religious persecution and mania, sexual awakening and humanity vs. nature, The Witch is a fully immersive and wholly terrifying experience.

related article: Explaining The Witch Ending

Director Robert Eggers maintains astonishing control of mood and texture throughout, and the entire cast -- including newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy as the family’s teen daughter -- seems eerily snatched out of the past. The Witch is classic supernatural horror.

Watch The Witch on Amazon Prime

Best Recent Horror Movies - The Visit (2015)

The Visit (2015)

M. Night Shyamalan began a welcome and long-overdue comeback with this quirky and creepy little found-footage experiment, which focuses on a teen brother and sister who make an unforgettable and eventually terrifying trip to visit the grandparents they’ve never met.

Related article: M. Night Shyamalan on The Visit

Shyamalan seems comfortable working within the lower-budget confines of the Blumhouse scream factory, and he manages to inject both a nice streak of morbid humor and enough of his trademark character touches to keep us off-balance. The movie has an unsettling tone throughout and, for the first time in a long time, the “twist” is well-earned and shocking.

One of the best horror films of the past couple of years is, like all the genre’s standout entries, rich in metaphor and subtext – is the curse passed through sex among the movie’s characters a stand-in for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, or is the sex act itself a way to affirm life or at least postpone the inevitable onset of death? Writer/director David Robert Mitchell keeps it ambiguous – much to some viewers’ chagrin – and instead focuses on the movie’s overall atmosphere and tone, which is dream-like and full of dread.

related article: It Follows and the Homecoming of '80s Horror

Lead actress Maika Monroe is a star in the making, but the most unforgettable thing about It Follows is its implacable walking phantoms, who cause your flesh to crawl every time they enter the frame.

An instant classic upon its release, this Australian shocker is, astoundingly, the debut film from writer/director Jennifer Kent, who retains the kind of complete and unwavering grip on her story, themes and tone that you would expect from a much more seasoned filmmaker. Essie Davis is outstanding as Amelia, a widowed mother still reeling from the loss of her husband Oskar as she does her exhausted best to raise their troubled six-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman), who was born the night that Oskar died.

further reading: The 25 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen

Enter the Babadook, the subject of a frightening storybook that Sam finds and an entity that is soon terrorizing mother and child. Thoroughly frightening and unnerving, The Babadook is also quite profound as it touches on the nature of grief and parenthood, hinting that both can drive a person to the edge of madness -- or into the clutches of the Babadook.

Watch The Babadook on Amazon

Best Recent Horror Movies - Oculus (2014)

Oculus (2014)

Following his ultra-low-budget indie debut Absentia, writer/director Mike Flanagan expanded his short student film into this striking tale of supernatural and psychological terror. Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) stars as a woman who believes that an antique mirror has been responsible for the tragic history of her family, and sets out to destroy it by any means she can. The mirror, however, has other plans.

related article: Oculus Review

Set in two parallel timelines that eventually intersect, Oculus is original, creepy and filled with mounting tension; the film is steeped not just in the atmosphere of ‘70s horror cinema but also modern supernatural literature. With more features to his name since (including Ouija: Origin of Evil, his adaptation of Stephen King's Gerald's Game, and Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House) Flanagan is a talent to watch.

Watch Oculus on Amazon Prime

Best Recent Horror Movies - You're Next (2013)

You're Next (2013)

Home invasion movies can kind of be formulaic after a while, but director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett (The Guest) find a way to freshen it up by turning You’re Next into a macabre soap opera as well. In the meantime, however, there’s a ton of suspense and bloody mayhem to satiate fans of visceral horror, and the family dynamics at work make for a nice counterpoint to the terror.

related article: 25 Awesome Spooky Movies

The cast is terrific, a mix of horror vets (Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden) and mumblecore regulars, and Sharni Vinson is outstanding as the dinner guest with a secret of her own.

Watch You're Next on Amazon

Best Recent Horror Movies - The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring (2013)

A film about real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren had been in development for nearly 20 years -- outlasting Ed himself -- before finally coming to fruition in 2013 as The Conjuring. Based on a case the Warrens investigated concerning the haunting of a family farm by a witch, the film afforded director James Wan the change to take the horror skills he had honed on his previous project, Insidious, and apply them to a larger scale Hollywood production.

related article: The Conjuring Movie Universe Timeline Explained

The result was a genuinely scary experience with plenty of atmosphere and just enough empathy for the family and the Warrens to elevate the movie about the usual shock tactics. It was also a major box office hit, making it that rare genre entry that was enjoyed by both critics and audiences.

Watch The Conjuring on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - The Cabin in the Woods (2012)The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Both a deconstruction of the genre and one of the 21st century's best horror movies in its own right, The Cabin in the Woods could only be the work of Joss Whedon (co-writer) and Drew Goddard (co-writer and director), whose love and understanding of both the genre and the wider pop culture context around it make this one of the smartest satires in recent memory. Proposing that the standard template for a horror film is what keeps the real horrors at bay, the movie turns that formula on its head yet works it to maximum effect.

further reading: 25 Hidden Horror Movie Gems

Goddard is assured in his directorial debut, the cast (including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and a brilliant Richard Jenkins as one of the weary “technicians” pulling the strings) is game, and the movie nails its meta premise perfectly.

Watch Cabin in the Woods on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Adapted from Lionel Shriver’s novel and directed by Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin is the perennial “evil child” story disguised as an arthouse film. But the combination works, thanks to Ramsay’s striking direction and imagery and two knockout performances by Tilda Swinton as the mother and a frightening Ezra Miller as Kevin. Swinton’s anguished portrayal deepens the film’s themes and offers a searing and complex picture of a parent’s occasional ambivalence toward their own child.

further reading: The Underrated Horror Movies of the 1990s

Yet the movie doesn’t skimp on its horrors either, both psychological and physical, and stretches the boundaries of what can be considered a horror movie.

With just one feature to his credit before this (Down Terrace), director and co-writer Ben Wheatley hits his second film clear out of the park, fashioning it into a mash-up of gritty crime thriller and chilling Lovecraftian horror tale. The result is a unique movie that’s not quite like anything else on this list and will you leave you shaken to the core. Two former British soldiers turned hit men (Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley) take a job in which they must kill three people -- a priest, a video archivist, and a member of Parliament -- but soon find out that they have gotten involved with something far beyond their experience and understanding.

further reading: 13 Brilliant Horror Movies Under 90 Minutes Long

The somber mood, ambiguous plot (Wheatley deliberately and correctly leaves much unexplained) and almost unwatchable bursts of violence come to a boil in the truly horrifying and enigmatic climax.

After one hit (Saw) and a couple of misses (Dead Silence and Death Sentence), writer/director James Wan and his writing partner Leigh Whannell scored with this tiny ($1 million budget) indie that became a huge hit (and sadly spawned two lousy follow-ups). But Insidious deserved its success: it’s a genuinely scary film, with Wan displaying a tremendous talent for utilizing the camera frame, darkness and silence to create an oppressive atmosphere of dread only enhanced by some truly bizarre manifestations.

further reading: 28 Alternative Horror Movies Worth Watching

In pulling tricks from all eras of horror, Wan came up with something original, terrifying and entertaining – a horror ride that all fans could enjoy.

Director Kim Ji-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters) sends an intelligence agent (Lee Byung-hun) on a mission of vengeance against a sadistic serial killer (Choi Min-sik) in this shocking and stunningly depraved cat and mouse thriller in which all notions of morality go out the window along with numerous bloody body parts. Yet Kim keeps you invested in the characters as well, and this Korean epic has an undertone of sadness that’s hard to shake. Kim holds it all together masterfully, creating a horrifying experience like nothing else we saw the year it came out.

Watch I Saw The Devil on Amazon

Best Recent Horror Movies - The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil (2009)

Indie auteur Ti West’s homage to the horror movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s is replete with stylistic touches from both decades, ranging from the old-school opening credits to the use of zoom lenses to the 16mm film stock meant to look retro. But this isn’t just a pastiche: while The House of the Devil is the definition of a “slow burn” film -- which may leave some viewers impatient -- the payoff is worth it as babysitter Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is subjected to a night of Satanic horrors that will leave you shaken.

West is an expert at leading us along and then tightening the screws hard, and if you told me that The House of the Devil had actually come out around 1981 or so, I just might have believed you.

For better or worse, Oren Peli’s homemade, shoestring thriller kicked off a tidal wave of films using the “found footage” or “faux doc” style of moviemaking, an esthetic that has proven increasingly confining and exhausted. But there’s no denying the strength of a few early contenders, starting with this. Peli shows us almost nothing in terms of visual effects, which only heightens the experience: you can’t help but feel a powerful sense of dread every time his camera sits and stares into the shadowy abyss of the couple’s bedroom while they sleep.

Tons of sequels, rehashes and rip-offs later, Paranormal Activity remains authentically frightening and deserves its berth on a list of the century's best horror movies.

Watch Paranormal Activity on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - Let the Right One In (2008)Let the Right One In / Let Me In (2008/2010)

In an era of endless bloodsucking YA hotties, leave it to an 11-year-old girl to create the best and eeriest vampire seen on the screen in years. Based on a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist and directed by fellow Swede Tomas Alfredson, this is the story of the friendship that grows between lonely, bullied 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and the little girl who lives in the apartment next door, Eli (Lina Leandersson) -- an ancient vampire inside the body of a child. Let the Right One In is scary, funny, romantic and also quite mournful, tackling themes of youth, sexuality, loyalty, loss of innocence and love within a terrific and haunting vampire tale.

The two child actors are outstanding, with Leandersson projecting an otherworldliness and weariness far beyond her years. Credit is also due to the English-language remake by director Matt Reeves, who stayed largely faithful to the original while tweaking its meaning slightly (his actors, Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee, are fine if not quite as good as the Swedish cast).

Watch Let the Right One In here and Let Me In here!Best Recent Horror Movies - Martyrs (2008)Martyrs (2008)

Brutal and almost unwatchable, Martyrs represented perhaps the apex of the French extreme horror movement. A young woman (Morjana Alaoui) finds herself the subject of vicious “tests” by a secret society, aimed at creating a “martyr” whose suffering can give them a transcendental glimpse into the afterlife. The ordeal she goes through is just the grand finale of a nihilistic exercise in depravity. Director Pascal Laugier’s plunge into unrelieved sadism is given context by its powerful, eerie climax -- if you can make it to the end.

Writer and director Bryan Bertino made quite a splash with his debut feature, which relied more on a mounting sense of dread and escalating suspense than violence and gore. The story is a simple, straightforward home invasion narrative, but Bertino keeps it creepy and unsettling throughout thanks to some eerie imagery and his three terrifying antagonists. Bertino has directed some features since – the direct-to-video found footage thriller Mockingbird and The Monster – but The Strangers remains an impressively chilling calling card.

Michael Dougherty’s Halloween-themed anthology sat on the shelf for nearly two years until finally (and criminally) getting just a direct-to-home-video release, but the wait was worth it. Dougherty wrote and directed a loving homage not just to the year’s most haunted holiday, but to horror movies and ghost stories in general, delivering four interconnected tales that each serve as a nasty, creepy and thoroughly entertaining exercise in traditional horror, with just the right amounts of atmosphere, scares and gore.

further reading: The 31 Best Segments From Horror Anthology Movies

A lot of the best horror movies of this century aim to get under your skin in an unpleasant way, whereas Trick ‘R Treat just wants to have fun – and does.

This nasty shock to the system from Spanish horror specialist Jaume Balaguero uses the “found footage” style in logical fashion, as it’s told from the point of view of a news team that accompanies a fire brigade to a call at an apartment building. Things quickly take a turn not just for the bad but for the unspeakable as our heroes confront a zombie plague of a horrific nature, and [REC] rubs your nose in every nightmarish moment. The building itself is a spectacular, claustrophobic setting, and what [REC] lacks in meaningful character development it makes up in relentless terror and dread.

A faithful and pretty great Stephen King adaptation, The Mist is terrifying not just for the macabre monsters that come streaming out of the title cloud to lay siege on a small group of people trapped in a supermarket, but for the way those people turn so quickly on each other as well.

Writer/director Frank Darabont, nailing his third King-based adaptation after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, innately understands that King’s stories are often so disquieting because of the human monsters in them as well as the slimy, tentacled ones. In this case the threat is Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a religious fanatic who quickly does her best to divide the supermarket into two hostile camps -- I’ll let you work out the metaphors.

further reading: Revisiting The Mist Ending

Beyond that, however, The Mist is a genuinely scary monsterpalooza, with one of the bleakest endings ever. When you go even darker than the King original, that’s saying something.

The debut feature from Spanish director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) was produced by his friend Guillermo Del Toro, and frankly feels like it. It certainly has many of the hallmarks of Del Toro’s own Spanish-language horror films, with its focus on children, its marvelously atmospheric setting, its short bursts of shocking violence and its ghostly apparitions.

Either way, it’s a rich, beautifully crafted film that becomes unexpectedly and powerfully emotional at the finish. Belen Rueda is sensational as Laura, who returns to her childhood home -- an old orphanage -- with her husband and adopted son, only to find that it is not exactly empty. An English-language remake was planned for a long time, but perhaps fortunately, it has not happened.

Six women go exploring an unmapped cave system, with tragic and terrifying consequences, in writer/director Neil Marshall’s (Dog Soldiers) riveting horror hit. Marshall subverts the genre with his strong all-female cast (not a male hero in sight), refusing to dumb them down, but then puts the screws to them by introducing the blind humanoid inhabitants of the caves, surely one of the most horrific monster creations of the decade.

further reading: How The Descent Redefined Women in Horror Movies

The movie is unstoppably scary, showing no mercy to the characters or the audience (one shock early in the film makes this writer jump to this day), but also examines how far people will go to survive in seemingly impossible circumstances. The Descent is a harrowing, suffocating masterpiece.

Watch The Descent on AmazonBest Recent Horror Movies - Shaun of the Dead (2004)Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This loving homage to the films of George A. Romero -- the father of the modern zombie movie -- and to the horror genre in general launched the careers of director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost outside of the U.K. And deservedly so: Shaun is a near-perfect blend of horror and comedy, energized by Wright’s visceral style of directing and flavored with clever pop culture and genre references that are even more delicious if you’re a fan.

Pegg and Frost are perfect as two slackers who must contend with a zombie apocalypse -- two of the least likely but most endearingly goofy heroes you’ll ever meet.

Watch Shaun of the Dead on Amazon

Best Recent Horror Movies - Saw (2004)

Saw (2004)

Saw is now so closely associated with the torture **** genre that its numerous sequels almost singlehandedly gave birth to that people often don’t remember that the original is more of a suspenseful police procedural and genuinely gripping puzzlebox than an outright exercise in sadism. Not that Saw is a sitting-room drama either: there are plenty of visceral moments in the film, and even in his feature debut, director James Wan (The Conjuring) displays a surprising amount of control and confidence in his handling of the horrors.

Saw may or may not be a truly great film, but its influence is enormous and it still packs one of the best endings the genre has ever seen.

Watch Saw on Amazon28 Days Later (2002)28 Days Later (2002)

Looking at Danny Boyle’s revisionist zombie film now, its grimy handheld video esthetic is getting perhaps just a wee bit dated -- but even that fails to dilute the sheer aggressive energy of Boyle’s take on the horror genre.

The movie, like its spiritual forefather Night of the Living Dead, is also rich in political and social subtext, while balancing moments of outright terror with passages of almost poetic reflection. Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland expertly reinvigorated a subgenre that had been nearly moribund, paving the way for both the superb (The Walking Dead) and the silly (the film version of World War Z).

It was a foregone conclusion that the Japanese horror smash Ringu (1998), after becoming an underground sensation internationally, would be the subject of a big-budget Hollywood remake. But who imagined it would be this good? Director Gore Verbinski and writers Scott Frank and Ehren Kruger retain the original’s focus on atmosphere and creepy imagery over cheap scares, while Naomi Watts -- fresh off her sensational turn in Mulholland Drive -- is excellent as the reporter and mother who discovers the haunted videotape that causes viewers to die in seven days.

The American version fleshes out a few more narrative points that the Japanese film left ambiguous, but never wavers from its tone of quietly mounting terror. There have been plenty of J-horror remakes in the wake of The Ring, but it remains the first and the best.

Debate rages (even now, between this writer and his editor) over whether Mulholland Drive is actually a horror movie, but the simple truth is that filmmaking legend David Lynch has incorporated elements of horror into many of his films. No one comes as close to capturing the essence of a nightmare on screen, and Mulholland Drive contains two of the century’s most skin-freezing scenes: the infamous diner sequence and the discovery of a decomposing corpse in a darkened apartment.

Even if the plot didn’t invoke the genre in other ways -- including a supernatural force at work in Hollywood and the Repulsion-like disintegration of a young woman’s mind -- those two scenes would be enough to earn a spot on this list.

Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes) wrote and directed this elegant ghost story. Nicole Kidman is superb as Grace, who relocates herself and her two small children to a remote country estate in the aftermath of World War II. Their highly structured life -- the children are sensitive to sunlight and must stay in darkened rooms -- is shattered by mysterious presences in the house. Amenabar relies on mood, atmosphere and a few well-placed scares to make this an excellent modern-day companion to classics like The Haunting and The Innocents.

“Location, location, location” is what makes this tiny independent chiller from writer/director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) work so well and keeps its reputation intact. A five-man asbestos abatement team is hired to clean out the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, but the crew, led by the stressed-out Gordon (Peter Mullan), soon finds itself at the mercy of both personal tensions and an unseen force inside the facility.

Anderson shot the movie at the real Danvers, and the empty treatment rooms and labyrinthine underground tunnels create an undeniable atmosphere of disquiet and uncertainty. The nearly gore-free movie is a model of how a fantastic setting, a solid cast and an almost complete lack of jump scares can make for a thoroughly haunting viewing experience.

Guillermo Del Toro has made several great movies in his career so far, but for our money this remains his best, scariest and most profoundly affecting work (Pan’s Labyrinth is a close, close second). The Devil’s Backbone is a ghost story set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, at an orphanage for boys where an unexploded bomb is embedded in the courtyard and a spirit is wandering the halls at night.

The movie is drenched in both a heavy atmosphere of dread and a blanket of sadness; its mournful elegance counterbalances some of its more chilling scenes of terror. This is dark supernatural storytelling at its finest and a marvelous example of just how high the horror genre -- so often maligned by critics -- can reach.

Films like Ringu and Juon were the cornerstones of the Japanese horror explosion of the late ‘90s, but for my money, Kairo is the pinnacle of that era. Director/writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film is one of the most unnerving exercises in surreal horror ever made, with one frightening image after another washing onto the screen. Although the movie’s central idea - -that the realm of the dead is infiltrating our world through the internet – is original and compelling, its presentation is somewhat murky. But Kurosawa doesn’t necessarily feel the need to spell things out: he wants to instead lure you into a living nightmare – which Kairo accomplishes over and over again.

Watch Kairo on Amazon

That’s our list -- did we miss any of your favorites that you’d like to add? Let us know below!

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Don Kaye is a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist and associate editor of Den of Geek. Other current and past outlets include Syfy, United Stations Radio Networks, Fandango, MSN, RollingStone.com and many more. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @donkayeHorror Movies31 Days of HorrorHalloween